No point of lockdown if schools are open?

[HermioneWeasley]

I accept that the first national lockdown was eventually effective at bringing transmission down (at a terrible cost), but with schools open there’s no point in closing down the rest of society and the economy

Agree 100%

New daily cases in Ireland (grey chart), and Scotland (blue chart), restrictions but with schools open. Looks like Ireland is definitely getting cases down and Scotland has got them levelled off and maybe starting to fall.

So what’s your solution then? Would you just close schools indefinitely because as soon as schools re-open, the virus comes back.

Maybe you think that educating children, helping them develop social skills and their mental health is unimportant.

Absolutely not @Eyewhisker, I think it’s horrendous how thr education, wellbeing and mental health of kids has been abandoned through thr pandemic.

Honestly, I think they need to get the nightingale hospitals open because transmission is going to keep going.

@GoldenOmber, I hope you’re right and it can be brought down with schools open and without fucking the economy even more

Agreeeeeeed.... 110% ridiculous

Schools will be the last to close much to the disappointment of many mumsnetters. Ireland and Scotland are seeing reductions with schools open so I absolutely don’t agree with you.

No point of this thread given how many others on exact same issue

It may still come to that, if this suggested month's lockdown doesn't reduce the infection rate sufficiently. We'll just have to wait it out and see what happens. We're a high risk household anyway so have been trying to be careful over where we go but without making our lives joyless.

Agreed

I agree.

Of course I get education is importsnt and that some parents will be unable to work. But a lock down is useless if all under 18s are still mixing with over 30 households a day and then going back to their household.

It makes the lockdown ineffective, which long term will have a greater impact on children as it will carry on for longer and we’ll potentially have 30-40 years of a fucked up economy rather than the 15-20 which people are currently saying.

No point having all the qualifications in the world if there’s no jobs.

I agree - but schools closing is a nightmare so don’t know what the solution is. Unis too- there’s got to be a lot of spread among students

I agree. At the very least parents should be given the choice whether or not to send children to school.

I really am considering keeping DC home - this all feels so wrong right now

I know numerous people that have had covid recently.. But they seem to have got socially or from other family members (that didn't get at school) ...

But no one in my children's 3 schools or local schools seem to have got from others at school. Yes there has been odd cases (we are in a very high tier 3 area so it's in community). individual cases take out bubbles for 14 days do not seem to be resulting in further cases. That's at both ks2 and ks3.

Perhaps we are just lucky.

Agreed

Disagree. Children bring it into schools and they catch it from somewhere. If everywhere else is closed, the rates will drop without having to close the schools! Yes it does spread in schools of course but if the number of children picking it up from outside reduces, so does the spread.

Chris Whitty said back in September that to keep schools open there may have to be sacrifices elsewhere. That's what's happening. Schools, hospitals and essential services (not the pub, or play dates, or seeing your mates, or clothes shops etc) stay, open everything else shuts and people stay home and we just might be able to get a handle back in this without putting swathes of the workforce back at home to look after or homeschool their children!

This is an interesting chart from the Independent Sage committee showing how much more effective a short sharp lockdown-including schools-would be, compared to alternative restrictions.

I would much rather a 3 week lockdown including schools, than a 9 week (or longer!) one without them.

I’m not sure that chart posted.

There's been cases in my DC's school (primary) two of which were in one of my DC class. No one else caught it, even though one of the children who tested positive attended school whilst ill with symptoms.
Thankfully for some reason it doesn't seem to be spreading in schools.

It's endemic in many schools. Both my DC are positive, caught in school, we haven't been anywhere else. This term there have been at least 40 cases in their school, those are the symptomatic ones we know of. Unless they close for a short time schools alone will maintain transmission and we will keep going round in circles.

Honestly, I think they need to get the nightingale hospitals open because transmission is going to keep going.

They couldn’t staff the nightingale hospitals last time so what’s different? Ventilation is a specialist skill.

Thankfully for some reason it doesn't seem to be spreading in schools.

Are you on glue?

Agree 100%

I agree.

It’s interesting that the 2 countries which most successfully got a grip on it were NZ and Australia and I believe both had a strict lockdown inc schools.

Yes you can argue that NZ never really got the big numbers so had an easier job but the state of Victoria had scary rates of increase for a while and went into a harsh lockdown. Nearly 4 months and they’ve just come out of it and seem to have cracked it.

Schools can’t close because some mumsnetters need the free childcare they provide in order to pay their mortgages... That’s exactly what has been said on another discussion here today.